[dkimtonf]

Had a group of benthrochromis tricoti come down with bloat. I place them in a 55 gal hospital tank, and dosed with metro. 3/5 recovered completely, and avidly ate NLS grow and then dainichi pellets. These 3/5 graduated back to the main 125 gal community, and are able to compete with everyone else for food. the other 2/5 are still in the hospital tank. They eat but spit out NLS grow, and this is a real tiny pellet!! I was about to dose with metro again, until strangely I noticed them eating of all things the algae wafer I put down for the ABN pleco!! Talk about trying to feed steak to them, and they go for the salad!! the 2/5 are pooping brown normal feces, so I held off on the metro. before the bloat problem they were eating NLS grow avidly. Now they eat it and spit it out. How can I convert them back to eating pellet food, so they can go back to the main tank and compete for food? I even tried soaking NLS cichlid pellets in water, but one eats the soft pellet, then spits out particles. Could they have an internal parasite that would need to be treated with prazipro?

 

[Heyguy74]

Starve them for a few days. They try a little bit.

 

[BioG]

Just curious, are they full grown? It seems that the larger fish always give you enough time to treat effectively due to their mass. Either way good luck!

Any posts on Benthos are appreciated I think in that they're so rare and awesome! So keepem comin

 

[Darkside]

Depending on how bad the infection was it could take a month or more for the digestive tract to fully recover. Feed them sparingly, maintain good water quality and just give them some time to recover. Eventually they should come around if you want to further encourage them try soaking the pellets in a mixture of water and garlic. For some reason the taste or smell of garlic is irresistible to most fish.

 

[dkimtonf]

the fish are 2 1/2 inches and 3 inches. The bigger one is finally taking pellet convincingly, but I still have it in the hospital tank as a dither for the smaller recovering one. The smaller one seemed to relapse when I took out the 3/5 recovered ones. Wasn't really a relapse, since it ate the algae wafer and pooped brown stool.

Heyguy74, I just got back from vacation and tried the pellets. They both ate it, including the smaller one. But after one feeding it went back to eating then spitting it out. They both love the algae wafers.

Think I will take Darkside's advice and just keep up on the water changes and have them hangout while they recover. It's reassuring to see them poop brown!!

Anyone ever try any home made garlic receipes? Can't image it being too hard. press a slice of garlic, and put whatever juice comes out on the food.

 

[Frazee86]

could just get some galric powder put it in a cup with water and drop the food in much easier i would think :thumb:

 

[dkimtonf]

excellent idea!! I'll check and see if there's any the kitchen. Should work just like soaking food in metro.